SELF-Partiality, is a phrase employed by some philosophers to express that weakness of human nature * See Lord Kaimel's Art of Thinking. through which men overvalue themselves when compared with others. It is distinguished from general partiality, by those who make use of the expression, because it is thought that a man is led to overrate his own accomplishments, either by a particular instinct, or by a process of intellect different from that by which he overrates the accomplishments of his friends or children. The former kind of partiality is wholly selfish; the latter partakes much of benevolence.
This distinction may perhaps be deemed plausible by those who consider the human mind as little more than a bundle of instincts; but it must appear perfectly ridiculous to such as resolve the greater part of apparent instincts into early and deep-rooted associations of ideas. If the partialities which most men have to their friends, their families, and themselves, be instinctive, they are certainly instincts of different kinds; but an instinctive partiality is a contradiction in terms. Partiality is founded on a comparison between two or more objects; but genuine instincts form no comparisons. See INSTINCT. No man can be said to be partial to the late Dr Johnson, merely for thinking highly of his intellectual powers; nor was the doctor partial to himself, though he thought in this respect with the generality of his countrymen; but if, upon a comparison with Milton, he was deemed the greater poet of the two, such a judgment will be allowed to be partial, whether formed by himself or by any of his admirers. We apprehend, however, that the process of its formation was the same in every mind by which it was held.
The origin of self-partiality is not difficult to be found; and our partialities to our friends may be traced to a similar source. By the constitution of our nature, we are impelled to shun pain and to pursue pleasure; but remorse, the severest of all pains, is the never-failing consequence of vicious conduct. Remorse arises from the dread of that punishment which we believe will in a future state be inflicted on vice unrepented of in this; and therefore every vicious person endeavours by all possible means to banish that dread from his own mind. One way of effecting this is to compare his own life with the lives of others; for he fancies that if numbers be as wicked as himself, the benevolent Lord of all things will not involve them in one common ruin. Hence, by magnifying to himself the temptations which led him astray, and diminishing the injuries which his conduct has done in the world, and by adopting a course diametrically the reverse, when estimating the
the morality or immorality of the conduct of his neighbours, he soon comes to believe that he is at least not more wicked than they. Thus is self-partiality formed in the mind, and quickly blinds him who is under its influence so completely, as to hide from him the very faults which he sees and blames in others. Hence the coward thinks himself only cautious, the miser frugal. Partiality is formed in the very same manner to natural or acquired accomplishments, whether mental or corporal. These always procure respect to him who is possessed of them; and as respect is accompanied with many advantages, every man wishes to obtain it for himself. If he fails in his attempts, he consoles himself with the persuasion that it is at least due to his merits, and that it is only withheld by the envy of the public. He compares the particular branch of science or bodily accomplishment in which he himself most excels, with those which have conferred splendour on his rival; and easily finds that his own excellencies are of the highest order, and entitled to the greatest share of public esteem. Hence the polite scholar despises the mathematician; the reader of Aristotle and Plato all the modern discoveries in physical and moral science; and the mere experimentalist holds in the most sovereign contempt a critical knowledge of the ancient languages. The pupil of the ancients denies the merits of the moderns, whilst the mere modern allows nothing to the ancients; and thus each becomes partial to his own acquisitions, and of course to himself, for having been at the trouble to make them.
Partiality to our friends and families is generated in the very same way. Whenever we acquire such an affection for them as to consider their happiness as adding to our own (see PASSION), we magnify their excellencies and diminish their defects, for the same reason, and by the same process, that we magnify and diminish our own. All partialities, however, are prejudices, and prejudices of the worst kind. They ought therefore to be guarded against with the utmost care, by the same means which we have elsewhere recommended (see PREJUDICE, and METAPHYSICS, No 98.); and he who is partial to his own virtue or his own knowledge, will do well to compare the former, not with the conduct of his neighbours, but with the express value of his duty; and to consider the latter as no farther valuable than as it contributes to the sum of human happiness.